Portland Stage is pleased to announce the winners of the 2022 Clauder Competition for New England Playwrights. Grand Prize Winner Benjamin Benne (“Manning”) and Gold Prize Winner Mallory Jane Weiss (“The Page Turners”) will have their plays workshopped and given in-person staged readings in Portland Stage’s upcoming Little Festival of the Unexpected.

Since its debut in 1990, the Little Festival of the Unexpected has established a tradition of nurturing artists, invigorating audiences, and exploring new voices, visions, and forms of theater. The festival furnishes a supportive environment for playwrights to develop their work, as well as a unique opportunity for audiences to catch a firsthand look at the creative process that brings scripts to the stage. LFU readings are performed by a company of professional actors, and are followed by an open discussion with the audience, director, and playwright.

Selected from over 170 plays penned by playwrights from all over our region, workshops of two new plays from New England Writers will be presented in the coming weeks. “Both of these plays are fascinating and hold a hint of magic,” says Todd Brian Backus, Literary Manager of Portland Stage, “They offer exciting lenses into the modern American moment: asking questions about grief, masculinity, and what it means to be a woman.”

Backus continues, “One of the most exciting parts of my job is adjudicating the Clauder Competition. We give feedback to each and every writer who submits to the competition and then we workshop our favorite plays. In the following season we go on to a full production of the grand prize winner. Getting to work with a playwright as they nurture their work through readings, to workshops, to a world premiere production is really why I’m in this business to begin with. Getting to be a part of that journey.”

For over four decades, the Clauder Competition has been New England’s most prestigious playwriting award. Created in 1981 by Jeb Brooks, who continues to underwrite the program, the Clauder Competition celebrates the distinctive voices of our region’s playwrights and brings their work to the attention of the greater theatrical community every other year.

GRAND PRIZE WINNER

“Manning,” by Benjamin Benne 

Connecticut State Winner. After the death of his mother, Freddy and his father, Julio, spread her ashes in the garden, and a giant zucchini (that seems to have a heartbeat) sprouts overnight. Freddy calls his older brother Sebastian home to witness the vegetable, and also help take care of their father Julio, who seems to have lost the will to live. Sebastian brings his recently bonded red tailed hawk along and the two brothers try their best to coax their father out of his room. Can all three men develop a communal vocabulary to express their grief with each other?

“Manning” will be performed as Mainstage Season Production in 2024.

GOLD PRIZE WINNER

“The Page Turners,” by Mallory Jane Weiss

In a fictitious-kind-of-1844-or-so, four somewhat-Victorian women, Kipper, Mary, Sadie, and Alice are “The Page Turners,” a book club determined to redeem themselves after their disgraceful showing at last year’s Book Club Conference. But being a woman who reads is not a simple life; and over the course of the year, they maneuver questions of guilt, motherhood, self, and, of course, propriety. “The Page Turners” questions how to shape our identities as women not by society’s rules but rather by the women we surround ourselves with, the choices that we make, and the books that we read.

SPECIAL COMMENDATION

This year, a.k. payne’s “love i awethu” further stood out to us as an excellent entry and we have honored that play with a cash prize and a special commendation.

STATE WINNERS

Connecticut – “Manning,” by Benjamin Benne

Maine – “In the End We All Go to Providence,” by Julia Jennings

Massachusetts – “I Love You Elizabeth Warren,” by Laura Neill

New Hampshire – “Quietus,” by Richard Manley

Rhode Island – “The Handless King,” by Elias Harley

Vermont – “Provenence,” by Todd Cerveris

SCHEDULE

The 2023 Little Festival of the Unexpected will return to in-person performances after three years of zoom readings. Following each performance will be a talkback with the writer, director, and cast of the show.

“The Page Turners,” by Mallory Jane Weiss will be presented at 7 p.m. on Friday, April 21, at Portland Stage Studio Theater.

“Manning,” by Benjamin Benne will be presented at 7 p.m. on Friday, April 28, at Portland Stage Storefront Theater.

For these benefit readings tickets are available now for $13 in advance, and Pay-What-You-Can day of at the door.